We Should Still Be On Vacation!

What an ugly day.  Yesterday after chores we went to Scobey to have dinner with M's parents and brother and his wife and some cousins.  It was raining pretty heavily (for early March anyway) when we left here and was 32 degrees.  That rain eventually turned to snow and when we headed home about 5:30 the road was kind of slushy.  Later in the evening the wind was howling and it was still snowing.  I woke up several times during the night and could hear the wind, and when we got up early this morning it wasn't a pretty sight outside with snow, wind and very poor visibility.  I was scheduled to work in town today, my first day back after our vacation, and I couldn't go.  They shouldn't have been very busy since no one could go anywhere.

We had to venture the two miles to the cows and that was a challenge with the poor visibility and drifts across the road.  At one point on a curve, I had to get out of the pickup and determine where the edge of the road was so that we didn't dive into the ditch.  The cows were all huddled up against the windbreak and pretty white except for their eyes and noses.  There was a big drift right in front of the gate so M had to back up and take a run at it.  On the way over we discussed how we could move animals around so that they would all have better shelter.  We have a group of late calves in a back pen that we intend to sell one of these days and planned to move them into the barn, push the heifer calves into the back pens and let the cow herd into the corral and windbreak.  That plan quickly changed when we discovered a 5-foot drift in the back pen, and we couldn't get the gate open to get into the barn.

There was no point in chopping hay in that wind so M went to pick up bales with the pickup and couldn't get to them.  He started shoveling to them, but the wind was blowing the snow back in faster than he could shovel it out so gave up.  Both of our loader tractors were MIA, one hooked on to an auger where we were having grain cleaned and the other one at Opheim where he had been moving snow so they could get to some grain bins.  Not a good time to not have one at the farm.  He had to push some bales with the pickup to get them into position so he could pick them up with the bale bed and then try not to get stuck getting to the cows.  The visibility was so bad that he couldn't tell the snow was deep until he was in it.

We had to just drop a couple of bales in the corral for the heifers.  Again, there was a big drift in front of the gate so he had to take a run to get through it and through the gate.  Then I noticed that the wire holding the bottom of the gate post on the main gate into the yard was broken so we had to fix that before we headed home.  I was afraid we wouldn't get home, but the trip back seemed a bit better than the trip over.  It was easier to see anyway.

J and K had gone to Deadwood, SD with some friends for the weekend and were heading home today.  J called from Miles City and said the roads were bad and wondered how the weather was here.  When I looked at the road report, most of the roads north of there were closed or had severe driving conditions so they stayed in Miles City.

We spent the afternoon doing paperwork and I made some cookies and bread.  Eventually the sun came out, but the wind was still howling.  Then about 5:00 M decides we have to go get one of the tractors.  I thought he was nuts and was not excited about him dragging me out again.  It took a couple of tries to get out of our yard.  It had blown in that much since we had done chores.  We had to go around by Richland and up to the bin site.  There's a big hill just after the turn off the highway, and we were almost to the top when we ran into a big drift across the road.  M shoveled a path through it so we could keep going.  Yes, he's crazy.  I was bitching the whole way, and if we'd have gotten stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no backup I would seriously have had to hurt him!

We did make it to the tractor...and before dark, thank goodness.  We took it to Richland and put it in the shop since it is supposed to get to -5 tonight.  We'll have to go get it in the morning.  It was dark by the time we got home.  Then he had the nerve to ask what I was making for supper.  He got a can of soup.  I think I'm getting to old for this.

There was some interesting art in the barn this morning where the snow had sifted in and coated the cobwebs.